There’s some sort of intro waiting to be written here about how we define great art. What it means to be great v. what it means to good, and how we separate the two. This intro would contain very certain, borderline rhetorical statements about things that come down to chance, circumstance, dedication, popular taste, opportunity, and vision. Define it how you may; by our vague intuition, Gerardo Cantú’s interpretation of the The Last Supper, currently (editor’s note: as of February 2010) on display in the Biblioteca de Mexico: Jose Vasconcelos, in Baladeras, is great art.
A good deal of the piece’s brilliance lies in its ability to confound. Anyone who’s seen their fare share of Last Supper renderings is pretty much set on what to expect: Jesus, Judas, Mary, a smattering of apostles, some sort of divine sunlight spilling luxuriously through a window. Maybe a dove, maybe some Latin script at the top, maybe a coin purse on Judas’ person somewhere.
Cantú’s Last Supper is a beast of a very different nature. Garish and flat, the piece is stylistically evocative of both El Greco and Julian Schnabel in its emotive contortions and heightened Expressionist colors. There are also shades of Edward Gorey’s macabre creations.
The table at which the collected biblical figures sit looks more like a folding screen or piece of drywall, situated top-to-bottom, rather than the traditional side-to-side set up. Jesus, generally the welcoming, serene center of attention, is an outcast. He hangs from the top of the table, dejected, head in his hands, a picture of absolute isolation. Around him, the apostles guzzle wine and shove food in their mouths, oblivious of their lord’s psychic pain.
That Christ is doubtful and surrounded by his closest allies, all of whom are ignoring him, is a genius reimagining. While there are those who would call the work something akin to heresy (and there are always those crawling out of the woodwork to do just that. I imagine the primary occupation of these people being sitting around scouring the earth for things they might deem heretical), it is a sublime twist that greatly humanizes Christ.
Much like Caravaggio’s earthly renderings of the biblical, Cantú has stripped Jesus of his superhuman serenity and shown him much as he probably was: a man who, in a world of the self-serving, gave himself over to belief in the innate goodness of his fellow men and women.
Knowing that he was doomed to crucifixion, Christ took a long hard look in the metaphorical mirror, in this case other people, and wondered whether or not it was all worth it. Thus the apostles in Cantú’s work represent the vices and apathy of mankind.
Cantú’s painting can be read in another, similarly intriguing light. Let’s look at it this way: Christ is Mexico. We know that Mexico is a predominantly Catholic country. We know that the arrival of Christendom on the shores of Mexico irrevocably altered the course of the nation’s history, is responsible for the mestizo peoples and cultures of the country. We know that Christian imagery figures greatly into the Mexican artist’s search for cultural identity and reconciliation.
If Christ is Mexico, he is lost. He is a man of a violent fate, surrounded by his disciples, but they pay him no mind, consumed instead by their own lusts. It’s no great stretch to assume his apostles are the Spanish, Díaz, the failed aspirations of the revolutionaries, and all of the self-serving, matricidal bureaucrats and politicos who have haunted the histories of Mexico since the Spanish invasion.
Alone and destitute, Mexico walks to its certain death, and though it will rise again (this taking not only Christ’s resurrection as the future fate of Jesus-as-Mexico, but also the basic spiritual belief that death is not an end, but a transformation), though as what and in which conditions, no one knows.
Regardless of the artist’s intended reading or the preferred interpretation of any given viewer, Cantú’s vision of the Last Supper is an evocative, intelligent, probing painting, one which poses more questions than it presumes to answer; as such, it is great art.
Check out Cantu’s Last Supper in the foyer of the Biblioteca Mexico: Jose Vasconcelos.
Images of Cantú's Last Supper have yet to appear online, though a good deal of the artist's work can be found in this booklet. The booklet includes a very good overview of the artist's work a career, though be forewarned that it's in Spanish.
Image Credit: Cantú with one of his paintings, Araceli García
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